As new generations of young people begin to hit the roads and get their licenses, we hope their attitude towards road safety will be better than the generations before them.
The Royal Automobile Association of South Australia (RAA) created an annual Street Smart High road safety event to educate secondary school students on road safety.
Surveys conducted before and after the event showed a change in knowledge and attitude surrounding road safety. The RAA has been conducting surveys since 2009 and results have shown an improvement across the thousands of students over the years.
Results collected from one of RAA’s most recent surveys showed positive changes in young people’s attitudes, including the following data:
- 14% said it was ok to speed sometimes in 2009 – falling to 12% this year
- 34% said it was better their first car was an old car in case they crashed it – falling to 24% this year
“I believe our survey findings show road safety education is impacting positively on students’ attitude to risk taking on our streets and will hopefully translate into a reduction in road trauma,’’ RAA Community Engagement Senior Manager, Ben Haythorpe said.
“Prior to the event, only 44 per cent stated that they would “know what to do if they came across a road crash” compared with 81 per cent after the event,’’
“There was also a significant shift in awareness of the consequences of road trauma, with 61 per cent admitting concern about the number of deaths of young people on the road before the event, compared to 90 per cent afterwards.’’
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